Thursday, September 27, 2007

Challenges achieve very little in the world of the paranormal – apart from gaining dubious publicity for those who issue them. In fact, challenges thrown down by believers and sceptics virtually cancel themselves out.

A new and sceptical NZ$2 million (around £750,000) challenge was recently thrown down by a New Zealand organisation targeting the four mediums who star in the TV series Sensing Murder – Kelvin Cruickshank, Sue Nicholson, Scott Russell Hill and Deb Webber (above, left to right). But it has rightly been castigated, not by believers but by a website devoted to reality TV.

It reveals (21 September 2007) that “the folks at Immortality, under the pseudonym ‘atheist’, have written to four of the psychics from Sensing Murder inviting them to participate in their challenge and prove their psychic ability under controlled conditions. The prize is NZ$1 million to the psychic, with a further NZ$1 million on offer to charity.”

“Atheist”, however, is hardly an open-minded investigator. Referring to the psychics’ alleged ability to communicate with the dead, he or she declares: “I claim that you are a liar and can do no such thing.”

“So who,” wonders www.nzrealitytv.com, “are Immortality and do they even have $2 million? It’s a darn good question, and it doesn’t do their credibility much good that their online forum for discussing the $2m paranormal challenge links to an online community discussing horse racing.”

In fact, Immortality’s website is anonymous. It has no contact details, nor does it reveal who are the people behind it. But www.nzrealitytv.com has dug deep and discovered that it is registered to Charman Consulting Ltd of Botany/Golflands, and the named owners/employees are Alan Charman, his wife Rhonda Charman and Dave McClure.

“This seems to be an eclectic business which boasts a recruitment business, personal loan referrals, accommodation for the rugby world cup, psychological profiling and charity,” says he website. Eclectic, it adds, could also be interpreted as “people who dabble in anything they think they can make a buck from”.

The Charman Group says it is committed to helping people “in circumstances less fortunate than ours” and the companies in the Charman Group “sponsor young Kenyan children, to ensure that they have access to water, education, medicine and food”.

A laudable ambition. But then it then offers “details of children currently being sponsored”.

“Yep, it’s blank,” says www.nzrealitytv.com. “Apparently they were too busy with the gee gees. Another black mark for their credibility.”

Finally, showing much more level-headedness than the sceptical challengers, the reality TV website concludes:

“We do agree that it would be interesting to watch the Sensing Murder psychics operate under controlled conditions. Although the producers state that the process was laid bare to self-professed sceptic Nigel Latta, it can only be an objective test of the psychic’s abilities if the independent observer sets the environment and conditions.

“Perhaps next time a police officer could conduct the test without telling the producer or camera crew the name of the individual or the crime being investigated?”

As for the people behind “Immortality” it says: “A sceptic might wonder whether [they] have a spare $2 million to splash around. We say show us the money!”

It’s a timely reminder that the challenges issued by sceptics are seldom what they claim to be. Which is why neither the Sensing Murder mediums nor any other psychics are likely to respond

Oh boy she's back honestly I don't mind her singing at least some of her songs. Her debut song is Gimme More here album is coming out in November. It makes you wonder though how long this will last? I mean she may go back a date another guy or maybe Justin Timberlake who knows at this point only tell will tell.

Another used to be popular but not somemuch so is the Backstreet Boys now down to 4 members with there new song inconsolable. By the way there new album it's going to be released on October 30th.

Another used to be popular is the Spice Girls who have announced there reunion as well.

Using a Ouija board is one way to try to communicate with the dead, as this article tells.

Mystifying and sometimes terrifying experiencesTHE OUIJA BOARD continues to be a source of fascination, experimentation and concern among paranormal researchers and the general population. Our article on The Ouija Debate drew responses from readers who related their own experiences with the "talking board." Most of the stories were of a negative or frightening nature. (To be fair, however, people who have had a benign or neutral experience with the board would be less likely to respond.)

Rasputin's Ghost

Those who experiment with the board often claim to contact spirits, some of who divulge their names. The identity of these spirits is usually impossible to verify. Once in a while, a spirit claims to be a well-known or historical figure – or even the devil himself.

Such was John M.'s experience.

"When I was about 11 or 12 years old in the late 1960s," John says, "I had a friend who claimed that he had a Ouija board where sometimes the planchette [the board's heart-shaped indicator] would move about on its own if he left the board out at night. Naturally, I was skeptical, having never seen a Ouija board that did much of anything. As kind of a joke, I told him to bring it over one summer afternoon and we'd try it. Sure enough, as we started asking it questions, the planchette would move about very rapidly and provide answers, or sometimes it would just point to yes or no. Since the movement was so fast for the pressure I was applying to the planchette, I was convinced my friend was moving it himself, but every time I asked, he denied it. Nevertheless, we were having fun and continued to ask questions.

"At some point I finally asked, "Who are you?" and the board spelled out S-A-T-A-N. I just looked at my friend and laughed, now even more convinced that he was the one doing the spelling. So then I asked, "What's your last name?" and the board spelled out R-A-S-P-U-T-I-N, which meant nothing to me, but I wrote it down. After we were done, I looked up Rasputin in the encyclopedia and was stunned to see that a man by that name lived in late 19th century Russia, and was feared because of his supposed occult powers. Knowing my friend, his age, and his level of intellect, I became convinced right then and there that the Ouija was for real and that my friend had not spelled that name out."

Even if the Ouija is capable of contacting the spirit world, is it likely that the spirit of Rasputin would speak to two teenage American boys? Or was some other entity just playing a scary trick?

The Ouija Strikes Back

On rare occasions, use of the Ouija has triggered physical manifestations and psychokinetic activity. Darryl D. claims that he and his friends were assaulted by something during a Ouija session.

"When I was about 14 or 15 years old, I had a Ouija," Darryl says. "My friends and I would gather in a basement at my friend Doug's house. We would turn the lights off, light some candles and sit around an old table that was in the house when his grandpa lived there. (His grandpa committed suicide in the kitchen.)

"One night when we where using the Ouija, a gust of wind came out of nowhere and blew out all of the candles.

"Another time, some girls came over to Doug's house and we started using the Ouija. We started to see strange shadows walking around the basement... and then it happened: the candles went out and we all heard this horrible scream. After we got the lights turned on, we noticed that one of the girls, who was sitting on a couch watching us, had blood coming from the back of her neck. The necklace she was wearing had been ripped from her neck and was laying on the floor about 10 feet from where she was sitting. She had two small charms on it; we found one inside of a small crawlspace under the stairs and the other was outside laying on the concrete in front of the back door. I have not used this Ouija since this happened."

I think anyone who experienced this would also put the Ouija safely away.

If, as it is claimed by some, that the Ouija can contact beings from unknown planes of existence, couldn't they perhaps give us information about winning the lottery or some other lucky numbers? Undoubtedly, this has been attempted many times. Clift S. says he tried it.

"Back in 1969, I was living in Tacoma, Washington, managing an apartment house," Clift tells us. "One night I used the Ouija board to see what I could find out. I didn't know what spirit I would get, if any. After awhile, it started to move, so I asked who it was, and the pointer spelled out DAD. It scared me.

"I never messed with it again until 1971 when my brother came to Tacoma to live. I was betting on horse races, so his daughter, who had a Ouija board, suggested we should see if we could find out the numbers of the horses who would win the first two races at Portland Meadows racetrack. So my niece and I used the Ouija, and it said the numbers would be 2 and 6 in the first two races.

"My brother, his wife, my niece and I drove to Portland to play these numbers in the daily double. Well, the horses came in 6 and 2 in the first two races – just the reverse of what the board said.

"I don't know if my niece has the board anymore, but I do believe you shouldn't use the board because it will either cause you harm... or make you do foolish things like we did."

The Ouija gave Clift the right answers, but not in a way that was useful to him. Was this the act of a prankster spirit?

Ouija Answer

The board isn't always a prankster. There are many cases in which the Ouija provides real, verifiable information that is not known by the participants. Andrea's experience is a compelling one.

"Two friends and I were talking about Ouija boards, and whether or not we believed in them. The two friends were firm believers in the board and its powers, but I was skeptical. Having a Ouija board myself, yet never using it, I decided to bring it to our next gathering and give it a try.

"At my friend's apartment we turned down the lights, lit a candle and went to work. Within a minute the planchette started to move. One friend asked if there was a spirit that wished to communicate with us. The planchette went to the word YES. Starting to think there was something to this, I had a question for this spirit. I had a brother my family lost touch with over two years ago. I asked if the ghost knew where he was. It answered YES. It spelled out quite clearly a street name in British Columbia, Canada.

"After finishing our session with the board and thanking the spirit, I searched the Net and found out there was one listing for this street in B.C. within the Fraser Valley, between Vancouver and the U.S. boarder. Upon searching the city's phone book listings under my brother's last name – there he was, plain as day. Having a very unusual last name, I knew it was him instantly. I tried the number, and it was his voice on the other line! I was stunned.

"Maybe there is something to Ouija. I don't know. The two friends knew I had a brother, but never met him. They also did not know my maiden name in order 'fix' the board's answer. I have no explanation except that I guess spirits do exist."

The reason many paranormal investigators advise against using the Ouija is that they believe it can open doors to realms that should remain closed. Ken M.'s cousin and friends learned this lesson the hard way.

"This happened on a hot August night in 1971 in the town of Lodi, California," says Ken. "Some people are more successful at conjuring up spirits than others with a Ouija board. Carol, my cousin who swears by the story, had quite a history of contacting both benevolent and malevolent spirits.

"On this particular night, Carol and her friend were at Carol's house with their boyfriends. Soon after they began, the planchette took on a life of its own and told them there was a robbery in progress at a nearby McDonalds. Everyone was quite skeptical.

Then the Ouija went on to describe the vehicle driven by the culprits: a station wagon, and that it was urgent. "Help, please help!" it spelled out.

"The men decided that the situation was too good to pass up, and just before they left, they told the women to not open any doors except for them. They drove off leaving the women with one shotgun and a box of shells. As their headlights pulled out of the driveway, Carol and her friend were terrified by a loud growling noise coming from the back door. Terrified, they braved enough energy to venture back to the door and were greeted by a loud scratching noise. As soon as they heard this, they scrambled back to where the shotgun lay and pumped shells into the chamber.

"As they got the shot gun loaded, a knock was heard at the door. Carol pulled the drape back and was relieved to find her boyfriend and his friend standing there. Full of terror, they let them in. They told the men what they had just encountered and what they had just heard at the back door. Still skeptical, the men went to the back door to investigate.

"They found the door was shut but when they opened it, they found long deep scratches along the door frame. Carol told me that she and her friend threw away the Ouija board that night."

Did the Ouija give false information just to get the men out of the house so it could terrorize the women? Scarier still, what would the women have encountered had they opened that back door?

Recently there has been lot of talk about the Jena 6 six black students one of them assaulted a one student now however before that there was the white tree incident.

The "white tree" incident

At Jena High School, about 10% of enrolled students are African Americans and more than 85% are white. Early reporting asserted that students of different races seldom sat together, although this has been disputed.[6] According to early reports, black students typically sat on bleachers near the auditorium, while white students sat under a large tree, referred to as the "white tree" or "prep tree", in the center of the school courtyard.[5] On September 22, 2007, however, the AP reported that the "white tree" was no such thing, and that according to teachers and administrators at the school, students of all races had sat under it at one time or another.[6]

During a school assembly on August 31, 2006, a black male freshman student asked permission from the principal to sit under the "white tree".[7] According to the recounting of events given by U.S. Attorney Donald Washington, a Bush appointee who is himself black,[8], the question was posed in a "jocular fashion".[9] The principal told the students they could "sit wherever they wanted."[7] The freshman and his friends then sat under the tree.[10]

The following morning, nooses (reports differ whether there were three[5] or two[6]) were discovered hanging from the tree. It has been reported that Jena's principal learned that three white students were responsible and recommended expulsion, that the board of education overruled his recommendation, and that Superintendent Roy Breithaupt agreed with the overruling. It was initially reported that the punishment was reduced to three days of in-school suspension.[5][11] According to the Associated Press, however, the three students were isolated at an alternative school for a month, and then spent two weeks on in-school suspension.[6]

The school superintendent was quoted as saying, "Adolescents play pranks. I don't think it was a threat against anybody."[12] Black residents of Jena claim that this decision stoked racial tensions that led to subsequent events.[11] However, a black teacher described seeing both white and black students "playing with [the nooses], pulling on them, jump-swinging from them, and putting their heads through them."[6]

According to U.S. Attorney Donald Washington, the FBI agents who investigated the incident, as well as federal officials who examined it, found that it "had all the markings of a hate crime." However, it wasn't prosecuted because it failed to meet federal standards required for the teens to be certified as adults.[13]

In late July 2007, U.S. Attorney Donald Washington noted that of the more than 40 statements taken regarding the assault, none mentioned the noose incident.[9] LaSalle Parish District Attorney J. Reed Walters stated there was no linkage between the noose incident and the beating. "When this case was brought to me and during our investigation and during the trial, there was no such linkage ever suggested. This compact story line has only been suggested after the fact."[13]

So should one of the boys get charged for assault? Yes i think so.

Of course there many more incidents involving the Jena six could it be racial backlash? I think it could well be.

Matt Erickson stepped into the third-floor motel room with several other wary travelers just before midnight. Some turned on digital recorders to capture "electronic voice phenomena," known to aficionados as EVPs. Others snapped photos, seeking the fleeting image of a spirit.

Erickson's throat began to constrict. "I started coughing and choking, but as soon as I left the room, it stopped," he said. "Then I found out a guy had committed suicide in the room by cutting his own throat."

Strangely enough, that was exactly the kind of thrill Erickson hoped for during his vacation in Warwick, R.I., last December. The carpenter from Thief River Falls had joined 85 people from around the country for the unusual weekend, which was organized by two Twin Cities men who have staked a claim on a heretofore unexploited travel niche: Group ghost hunting.

Dave Schrader of Circle Pines and Tim Dennis of Burnsville are leading groups as large as 220 people on trips to haunted hotels, spooky cruise ships and, this year, an abandoned prison.

Their booming paranormal vacation business didn't happen in a vacuum. In the past three years, TV lineups have become rich in supernatural offerings. At the moment, at least a dozen shows serve up ghosts, hauntings and mediums in one form or another.

It was against this backdrop that Schrader and Dennis started their online weekly radio show in January 2006.

In the span of a year, weekly two-hour broadcasts of "Darkness Radio" made them celebrities among fanciers of otherworldly mystery. The show features interviews with the stars of the TV shows, along with demonologists, mediums and authors.

The locations include the Queen Mary cruise liner, docked in Long Beach, California ; the La Quinta Inn in Warwick, R.I., reputedly haunted by former guests who committed suicide there; and the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colo., famous as the setting of "The Shining." Travelers pay between $180 and $250 to attend the weekend events, not including transportation or lodging. Schrader and Dennis pay TV celebrities and paranormal experts to give talks and join in on nightly ghost hunts. So far they've run four trips and have four more scheduled in 2007. Trips to haunted castles in England and a former insane asylum in Kentucky are in the works.

"We've been blown away by the numbers," said Schrader. "For the first trip to the Stanley last year we sold out in three weeks: 220 tickets. We have 240 paid already for the next one."

The success has led Schrader, 39, to close his small marketing firm to focus on Darkness Radio and the travel business. Dennis, 36, works as the operations manager for the Davidson Media Group, which owns two radio stations in the Twin Cities. Dennis produces the show, which streams live from 10 to midnight on Sunday nights at www.darknessradio.com.

Schrader and Dennis said they have had experiences that make them curious about what happens to people after they die and that make them open to the idea of hauntings.

"I count myself as a skeptical believer," Schrader said. "But not every bump in the night is a ghost; sometimes it's just the pipes knocking."

A lot of other Americans share the Darkness Radio perspective: The most recent Gallup Poll to examine the issue (June 2005) reported that 37 percent of Americans believe in haunted houses; 16 percent are unsure. and 46 percent don't believe in them.

That so many Americans are believers isn't surprising to Jason Hawes, costar of Sci Fi's reality show "The Ghost Hunters." Hawes is a star attraction on many of Darkness Radio's trips.

"There's always been an interest in the paranormal, but it wasn't always something people talked about," he said. "All these shows have given people permission to admit their experiences and talk about them."

Those who have taken the vacations aren't shy about sharing their stories.

Tracy Petsuch, a property manager from Coon Rapids, took one of the trips to the Stanley Hotel. She collected an EVP (and played it for a reporter; behind a lot of static, a ghostly voice seems to be saying "call me dead man"). She also heard footsteps running up to her hotel room door. When she opened it, no one was there. "I just say it's fun," she said. "I can't blame someone else for not believing because nothing happened to them."

Matt Erickson, the carpenter who went to Rhode Island, said the best moments of the trip were sharing meals and downtime with the celebrities from "The Ghost Hunters" and "Darkness Radio."They're all real down-to-earth guys," he said.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Psychokinesis, or the ability to manipulate objects with the mind, is a notoriously difficult to prove ability. Most famously Uri Geller achieved fame in the 1970's with his seemingly amazing ability to bend spoons with nothing other than the power of his mind. Early on in his career, a number of scientists concluded that Geller does indeed posses psychic and psychokinetic abilities, however controversy over Geller's power developed after a number of stage magician's, most recently Criss Angel, claimed that Geller's abilities are simple stage magic tricks. Whichever is the case, Geller remains the most public individual claiming to have these powers.

More obscurely, and more defiant against attempts to debunk, is the case of Ninel Kulagina. A female soldier in the Soviet Red Army, Kulagina found that whenever she became angry poltergeist activity would manifest in the room around her. After some time, she began to sense that the force that was responsible for the moving objects came from within her, rather than from a spirit. With practice, she learned how to focus her power and move objects at will. Soviet Scientist Edward Naumov was among the first to test her claims by spreading a box of matches on a table. Straining to the point of shivering, Ninel spread her hands over the matches and within seconds the matches moved to the corner of the table in a cluster, and fell to the floor one by one.

Ninel was then tested by Dr. Genady Sergeyev, who made more than 60 films of Ninel exhibiting her psychokinetic abilities. These films range from Ninel manipulating a broken egg in a tank of water, seperating the yolk and the white and moving each to opposite sides of the tank. Ninel was standing several feet from the tank at the time. In another experiment, a beating frog's heart suspended in a solution was sped up and then stopped by Ninel, demonstrating that her abilities extended beyond moving inanimate objects to the manipulation of living cells.

Sergeyev measured an apparently quite strong electrostatic field surrounding Kulagina, and during the egg experiment, that field was found to have a four cycle per second pulse when the yolk and white were in movement. Further, Kulagina was found to be under severe physical and emotional stress during the movement. Sergeyev concluded that she had the ability to magnetize objects, even objects that were non-magnetic, and draw them toward herself, or alternately repel them away.

Using her powers took a serious toll on Kulagina. She reported that she knew when the power would come by a sharp pain in her spine and blurred vision. In the late 1970's Kulagina suffered a near-fatal heart attack that may have been linked to her psychokinetic abilities. Medical examinations showed that she suffered from an irregular hearbeat, problems with her endocrine system and some symptoms of diabetes. She suffered pains in her extremities and had coordination problems and dizzyness, all linked by soviet researchers to the use of her psychokinetic abilities. She curtailed her psychic activies after the late 70's and died in 1990.

Criticism from skeptics of Kulagina seems to rest on shaky ground. They claim that the soviet scientist's experiments were far from being done in a controlled environment, and that sleight of hand could account for her abilities. How sleight of hand could be responsible for the seperation of egg yolks and whites in a tank of water several feet away from the manipulator doesn't seem to have been adequately addressed. Further, skeptics have claimed that the Soviet's had a motive to fake the whole thing to compete with US Government studies on psychic phenomena. Strangely, this is a conspiracy theory spun by the skeptics, which is obviously problematic in itself.

Whether or not the Soviet Union faked Kulagina, or if she really did have profound psychokinetic abilities remains a mystery.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

In this case the automatist was also Mr. Wedgwood's friend Mrs. R., a lady of unimpeachable integrity as already stated, and the mode of sitting with planchette was the same as described in the previous case. The sitting took place in June, 1889, and is recorded in the Journal of the S.P.R. for that year. Notes of the sitting were written at the time and the planchette writing copied.

As soon as the sitting began planchette wrote that spirit was present who wanted to draw; forthwith a rough drawing was made of the top of an embattled wall, or mural coronet, from which an arm holding a sword arose. Planchette wrote, "Sorry I can't do better, was meant for a test, J.G." Asked what the drawing represented, the answer came, "Something that was given me." Asked if J.G. was a man or woman, planchette wrote "Man, John G." Mr. Wedgwood said he knew a J. Giffard, was that right? The reply came, "Not Giffard, John Gurwood, no connection of yours." Asked how he died, "I killed myself on Christmas Day, it will be forty-four years ago next Christmas," i.e. in 1845. Asked if he were in the Army, the reply came, "Yes, but it was the pen, not the sword that did for me." Asked if pen was right, and if so, was he an author who failed? the reply was "Yes, pen, I did not fail, the pen was too much for me after the wound." Asked where he was wounded the reply was "In the Peninsular in the head, I was wounded in 1810." Asked if the drawing was a crest and had anything to do with the wound planchette wrote "It came from that and was given me, the drawing was a test; remember my name, power fails to explain, stop now."

Mr. Wedgwood then recalled that a Colonel Gurwood edited the despatches of the Duke of Wellington, but he had never read any history of the Peninsular war and knew no details of Gurwood's life or of his crest: Mrs. R. was wholly ignorant of the matter. After the sitting Mr. Wedgwood looked up the matter and found that Colonel Gurwood led the forlorn hope at the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo in 1812,(1) and the Annual Register states that he then "received a wound in the skull which affected him for the remainder of his life." In recognition of his bravery he received a grant of arms in 1812, which are specified in the Book of Family Crests, - and symbolised in the crest, - as follows, "Out of a mural coronet, a ruined castle in centre, and therefrom an arm, holding a scimitar." The drawing given as a test is practically this crest, though the ruined castle was doubtless too difficult to be drawn by planchette. Furthermore, the Annual Register for 1845 states that Colonel Gurwood committed suicide on Christmas Day that year, in a fit of despondency, and remarks that it was probably owing to the overstrain caused by his laborious work in editing the despatches; this explains the automatic writing, "Pen was too much for me after the wound." None of these facts were known to Mr. Wedgwood or Mrs. R. before the automatic writing came.

(1) Planchette wrote 1810, if the figures were correctly read.

In subsequent sittings Colonel Gurwood again controlled planchette and gave some further details of his life, the storming of the fort and names of persons, all of which were found to be correct so far as they could be verified.

I could not help but to laugh at this interview he calls himself an investigator of the paranormal but he is not if he was he would of taken the open invitation Professor Gary Schwartz gave him to see how the experiments are done with his Mental Mediumship Experiments however he declined and made a personal bias opinion that they are flawed. Also I am sure that other parapsychologist would also invite James Randi to there experiments but James Randi does not want that he wnats to form an bias opnion without investigating. Susan Blackmore has admitted that it is hard to keep an open mind to psi it's no wonder why she never receive any positive results he never really was a believer in psi or even a neutral assessor to it. The same with Richard Wiseman he admits that his data does match Rupert Sheldrakes but that does not matter right not to Richard Wiseman no it is to use a bias opinion by saying Rupert Sheldrake reults are somehow flawed.

Now onto Derren Brown an mentalist claiming that he can do the same thing as mediums can do there is no doubt there are a lot of fraudalent mediums out there but not all are frauds. He uses cold reading and other methods like hot reading and warm reaing but that does not explain away the high evidential information being tranmitted sometimes by mediums such as John Edwards.

Another skeptic Criss Angel says he can do a lot of tricks he calls them that all mediums do and also the phenomena called Levitation but has he even researched the evidence NO.

Monday, September 17, 2007

I would say NO the laws of physics only cover out part of reality it does not explain all of reality. Yes there is the many world's interpretation surposing billions and biliions of parallel universes which in some there could be identical copies of me and you with the same personality, memories etc.] Now this is a way to keep the possibility of survival after death out of the way because the many world's interpretation does not say mind is separate from the brain but supports the production theory because you have multiple bodies and minds that are sometimes identical in this theory. I have read on skeptical investigations a spectacular website and lots of information on it about the skeptics v.s parapsychologists. That David Decsthe a physicist you said about the topic Telepathy ''Utter Rubbish, Telepathy simple does not exist. Now he does not mention that he did any research in it but that he already made up this mind that it is rubbish I very unscientific way to things.

Here's what Dr. Susan Balckmore said about her work in Psi

So why didn’t I give up then? There are lots of bad reasons. Admitting you are wrong is always hard, even though it’s a skill every scientist needs to learn. And starting again as a baby in a new field is a daunting prospect. So is losing all the status and power of being an expert. I have to confess I enjoyed my hard-won knowledge.

…None of it ever gets anywhere. That’s a good enough reason for leaving.

But perhaps the real reason is that I am just too tired - and tired above all of working to maintain an open mind. I couldn’t dismiss all those extraordinary claims out of hand. After all, they just might be true …

The Gold Leaf Review By Jason Kuznicki. Jason Kuznicki Trys to debuunk the recent book out by Parapsychologist Dr. Stephen Braude you will see his opinions on it then you will see my responses below every statement.

Basically I try to stick to common sense, and to retain a humble attitude when I can’t explain things myself. A showy, strident, I’m-smarter-than-you attitude comports badly with the unexplained. I found just this sort of attitude in the excerpt from The Gold Leaf Lady, and I think it’s a good first reason to be suspicious.

Leo: Here we have bias that the paranormal is impossible and that there can't be any other explanation besides a materialistic explanation.

The skeptic prefers common sense not because the extraordinary never happens, but because it rarely happens, and because he knows that the human temperament tends to find just the opposite, and to see wonders where none exist. Human beings intuitively want to be on the verge of something incredible; we all want a life-changing experience of discovery; we want the revolution — and we want it now, too. But this is a dangerous instinct, and it leads down all sorts of blind alleys.

Leo: Sometimes yes but we can't make reality as simple as a materialist paradigm does. A skeptic is a open-minded sadly there are not many of them.

In its place the skeptic offers explanations that are plausible and efficient. He does not insist that he has any grand new systems to explain it all. Nor does he insist that no one can ever explain it all. Either one would be hubris. The skeptic takes the cautious middle path. He tests. He tries to repeat stuff. He shares evidence and tries hard to record everything he can.

Leo: I agree here but it comes to a point where materialist explanations no longer explain the data such as in this case.

The skeptic takes little steps, and he takes them seldom, and he deeply regrets having to venture away from the territory of common sense. Skepticism is often emotionally unsatisfying (witness the increasingly unhinged commenters at Prescott’s blog) but at least it saves one the trouble of having to believe many dozens of contradictory and impossible things all at once (again, witness the increasingly unhinged commenters at Prescott’s blog).

Leo: here we have an attack saying well because they are emotionally needed it to be true wrong because they have done there own research on life after death and psi.

The true skeptic most certainly does claim to recognize nonsense — at times. At times: as when brass foil with recognizably industrial characteristics “somehow” materializes on a woman’s body. And as with the gold leaf lady’s other, even more absurd claims. Indeed, I was surprised to find myself faulted for failing to address them, when even a few moments of thought could provide obvious explanations. But such is the uncritical mind, always hoping for wonders.

Leo: here he has it wrong a true skeptic considers all possibilities and see which one fits the data.

So here are her other purported miracles:

She clairvoyantly detected the scent of some marijuana that had not yet appeared in an unsecured place, but that did appear there in the future. Come on people, this is ridiculous. This is so trivially easy to fake that I can’t even believe it made it into the book.

Leo: I like to see you do it if it's so easy.

She supposedly helped in finding stolen goods. This though is quite easy when your confederate has stolen them. Let her consistently find objects hidden by independent researchers somewhere in a large public space, and then we will have some very strong evidence of a new phenomenon. Not until, unless an experiment of similar rigor can be designed.

Leo: here we have an assumption that she stoled good with no evidence to back up that claim.

She produced writing in medieval French although she is supposedly illiterate. A skeptic, however, knows that it’s also quite easy to memorize a four-line poem (an exotic-sounding “quatrain”), even if it’s in an unfamiliar language, and even if you’re illiterate. A skeptic also knows that poems in the style of Nostradamus are ridiculously easy to fake, since Nostradamus is widely published, and since much of his writing is ungrammatical nonsense.

Leo: A skeptic knows all this wow even if this were true does it explain away the rest of the data?

So these are the claims we have to deal with in this case. You don’t have to be a dogmatist to think that the simplest explanation is the best here. Particularly not when faced with the alternatives. For the gold leaf lady, your choices are as follows:

a) Angels, ghosts, demons, aliens, or other supernatural beings put foil on her skin for reasons unknown. This is the first time in all of recorded history that they have done such a thing, and the foil just happens to look like the ordinary earthbound stuff. These angels/ghosts/demons/aliens told her about criminal activity happening nearby, since they care very, very much about U.S. laws against marijuana. They also help her to write a few lines in medieval French, which everyone knows is a perfectly impossible feat.

Leo: here we have him saying that it's impossible for a ghost to do this feat.

b) A unique and previously unknown chemical reaction is happening in the woman’s body. It produces foil with characteristics identical to the foil produced in a modern metal press. This process creates absolutely no other chemical changes to her body and virtually no physical ones. This is the first time in all of recorded history that the phenomenon has been observed. This process just so happens to render her olfactory passages so sensitive to marijuana that she can even smell it into the future. Oh, and she also writes in medieval French, which everyone knows is perfectly impossible.

c) She stuck foil on her skin when no one was looking. She or a friend aped some bad poetry from Nostradamus, which is not after all impossible. A friend planted some pot on the beach and told her about the stuff he stole.

Leo: the date does not fit c and b seems a bit more plausible but not really.

Call me a closed-minded dogmatist, but until some really compelling evidence changes my mind, I’m going to have to go with c). It’s by far the least improbable. It’s not a certainty, but any claim to the contrary is going to have to face some pretty strict standards of evidence. I found them wanting in the excerpt I read. The skeptic believes that great claims require great evidence. The evidence for this woman’s abilities only occasionally rises to the level of intriguing.

Leo: true but here we have great evidence and this guy refuses to consider it.

Also, I find it pretty telling that our test subject refused a strip search by an impartial observer. As one of my commenters noted, Katie’s near-Victorian concerns for modesty could easily have been addressed in a dignified and professional manner: If we really are on the verge of discovering angels/ghosts/aliens/the astral plane/some wacky new biochemistry, then one might think that modesty could be set aside, perhaps for a few seconds at least. But no! Modesty is just too, too important, and only a friendly doctor can be consulted.

I have to assure you that I’m sorry to rain on your parade. I know which world you’d rather live in. You’d rather have the spirits, and the unexplained mysteries, and the sense of wonder. It’s a gripping and even a beautiful vision of the universe. Yet it just takes too many clunky improbable ad hoc new hypothetical phenomena to make it work. And all of them are centered on this one woman who curiously doesn’t like submitting to scientific examinations. Doesn’t that strike you, even a little, as suspicious?

Leo: the same can be said about you like to have a world that fits into oyur ego and materialist's beliefs.

A poltergeist that has forced a terrified Carlisle family to flee their home is to be "cleansed" by a vicar.

Spooky happenings prompted Allison Marshall, 27, to bundle her family out of the house in Mardale Road, Raffles, in the middle of the night.

Carlisle Housing Association, which owns the property, has now arranged for a priest to step in and end the family's nightmare.

Allison and children Rebecca, three, Emily, four, Shannon, seven, and Aaron, eight, enduring a series of bizarre happenings at the house that has been her home for four years.

She and her children are now staying with her mother Lesley Whitewick, 46.

The drama began last week with a catalogue of inexplicable happenings, which included household objects hurtling around the room and sudden and unexplained drops in the temperature in the house.

They continued with the mysterious appearance of a skull image in a picture frame in a glass display cabinet and disturbing noises in the dead of night, including a child sobbing.

A family friend called in a clairvoyant, who claimed he saw the image of a child in a dressing gown.

Allison said: "I don't really want to leave the house so it would be better if they could do something to sort it out and get this thing out of my house. If they can't get rid of it I'll have to move."

In a statement, Carlisle Housing Association said: "Carlisle Housing Association takes any situation which is causing distress to its tenants seriously and will offer support and assistance where it can.

"Two members of CHA Housing Management team visited the tenant on Monday morning to assess the situation and also arranged for the local vicar to contact her separately.

"We appreciate the distress Miss Marshall has voiced and will continue to offer her our support."

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Did you ever dream about an event before it happened to you? Or, perhaps you knew what another person was going to say before they said it? These events, examples of anomalous cognition, are part of our everyday experience but still remain to be understood scientifically. Jessica Utts, professor of statistics at UC Davis, has been one of the few statisticians to work in the field of parapsychology, analyzing data and helping with experimental design.Gathering statistics for parapsychology still uses the same methods, Utts said."As a statistician we can work on data in any field and it's still the same statistical methods," she said.Utts earned a bachelor's degree in math and psychology at the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1973 and a doctorate in statistics from Penn State University in 1978. She has since worked as a professor and statistician at UC Davis, catching a few breaks to work as a visiting professor at Stanford University and as a senior research fellow at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.In 1995, Utts was hired by the American Institutes of Research, an independent research firm, along with psychologist Ray Hyman from the University of Oregon to analyze data from a 20-year research program sponsored by the U.S. government to investigate paranormal activity.After doing initial research, Hyman and Utts found statistical support, she said.

"The two of us did this review and we both concluded that there were really strong statistical results there, but [Hyman] still didn't believe that it could be explained by something psychic - he thought there would be some explanation [that he] can't provide," Utts said. The research program involved remote viewing, in which test subjects were asked to describe or draw an unknown target. The target could be anything and could be located anywhere. According to Utts' meta-analysis of the 966 studies performed at Stanford Research Institute, subjects could identify the target correctly 34 percent of the time. The probability of these results occurring by chance is .000000000043.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

The current state of science is always changing the current scientific worldview is reductionist materialism. If you are a scientist or a somebody that is a non scientist and disagree with that view you are usually labeled a bible thumper or idoitic zealet.

There are many areas of phenomena that are ignored by materialist's these phenomena are - poltergeists-apparitions- dowsing- xenoglossy-past-life regression-near death experiences/out of body experiences

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Skeptical observers, from Barett on, have noted that the movement of stick, rods or plumb line probably results from involuntary muscle contractions in the dowser's arms and hands. At least one form of dowsing can be explained only in terms of extrasensory perception. This is map dowsing- a procedure in which the dowser holds a plumb line or some other indicator over a map of the terrain to be explored.

The American Society of Dowsers, which boasts more than 2,000 dues-paying members, estimates that there are at least 25,000 practicing doswers in the United States and in many cases they have been successful.

Are Dowswers something more than natural-born geologists? This and similar questions continue to be hotly debated. Yet one thing is certain: on the basis of performance, no other form of divination has so severely challenged its scientific doubters.

One of the first recorded Stigmatics was St Francis of Assisi. Coming from a wealthy family, he was an adventurer. However, in 1202 he was taken prisoner, the experience causing illness. From this point on he changed, eventually having a religious experience and publicly stripping himself, thus denying material things.In 1224 he founded the Franciscan Order and shortly afterwards he had another vision on the slopes of Mt Alvernia. He began to bleed, then, from the wounds of Christ, and bled continually for the last two years of his life.Early SPR member Eric Dingwall studied cases of Stigmata such as that of St Mary Magdalen de Pazzi who became a Stigmatic in 1585 after much religious devotion. Dingwall concluded that it was nothing more than self mutilation, caused by the masochistic attitudes of early religious devotion.However, when we consider the case of Padre Pio who bled continually from 1918 to his death in 1968, we must doubt the most fanatical masochism as the cause.

TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING

In 1972, ten year old Cloretta Robertson from Oakland, California, became a Stigmatic after watching a film about the crucifixion. Not particularly religious, Cloretta shows that we may not be dealing with religious devotion at all.This becomes clear from the case of Elisabeth K, a psychiatric patient looked after by a Dr Albert Lechler in 1932. After watching slides of the crucifixion, she began to feel tingling effects at the traditional sites of the wounds of Christ. Hypnotising her, the doctor suggested wounds at these points, which duly appeared.This suggests the idea that Stigmata is a replication of Christ’s wounds is unlikely. Evidence suggests people were nailed through the wrist during crucifixion, not the palms. Similarly, Stigmata seems to have begun when Church statuary first depicted crucifixion, giving a cultural stimuli.

A MIND THING?

What seems to be the guiding principle here is stress. Further, hypnosis can cause similar, if less severe, phenomena.Researcher Ian Wilson feels Stigmata is self-induced by stressful sufferers who turn to prayer, causing multiple personality-type symptoms, from which the Stigmata comes. Indeed, Oscar Ratnoff of Cleveland, Ohio, investigated some sixty cases where emotional distress has caused inexplicable bleeding.Just what causes Stigmata remains unclear. But one thing that is clear is that the ability to cause bodily scars by mind power is more common and observable than we think.

HYSTERIA

That hysteria is involved seems more than likely. Indeed, cases of hysterical blindness and paralysis are quite common, the mind having a definite effect on the body. Further evidence is offered by the placebo effect.Here, it has been shown that a state of mind can have up to a 30% effect upon the severity, or not, of illness. As for bleeding itself, psychological states are known to have an effect upon menstruation.Bodily blemishes, weals, and even sores can have a psychological foundation, with some cases of psoriosis being put down to stress. And if release is caused by, say, a reliance upon Christianity, it is easily possible for the result to be imitation of Christ’s wounds.

CULTURAL EFFECT

This shows a distinct cultural effect to the form psychologically induced body mutation can seem to take. And bearing this in mind, Stigmata can often be seen to be of benefit in other areas of phenomena.For instance, the ‘focus’ of a poltergeist infestation can often exhibit such bodily change, such as words appearing on the body as weals. Evidence for reincarnation often comes in the form of similar physical scaring to a previous life.Perhaps most relevant to modern phenomena, some cases of alien abduction are said to include physical evidence, such as marks on the body. However, by inducing the possibility of known hysteria in Stigmata, we can maybe conclude that other forces may be involved – forces from the inner mind rather than outer space.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Reports of shadow people have existed throughout history. The observer generally reports seeing a dark shadow that resembles the form of a human which appears and moves of its own accord. The figures does not have distinguishable facial features and may be either much smaller or larger than a human. They are often noticed as movement from the corner of the eye, sometimes disappearing when the observer turns to investigate.

Shadow people may move quickly across a room, usually disappearing through the wall or closed door. Many report a feeling of extreme dread or fear accompanying the sighting. Others have reported that when the shadow moves across their physical being a feeling of extreme cold overcomes their body. This sensation of coldness disappears once the apparition is gone.

Many believe that shadow people are the ghost of someone who has passed on but is not able to leave this physical world for some reason. Others believe that shadow people are creatures of another dimension that somehow overlaps our own, causing it to be partially visible. Many have captured images of what they believe to be shadow people in photographs.

Other paranormal enthusiast believe that shadow people were never human at all and are a demonic spirit that embodies pure evil. Some have reported seeing glowing red eyes, but generally shadow people appear as a simple form that resembles the human form. Some report the presence of a hat or cape. One thing in common is that shadow people often try to avoid detection and like to observe from corners of the room, usually at night.

Shadow people have been observed in daylight and many have observed them in full vision, although it is common to catch a sighting from the corner of the eye.

A state, known as hypnogogia, a physiological condition when a person is half way between sleeping and waking, could explain some sightings. During hypnogogia, the individual can be aware of the environment and at the same time be in a dream like state where they can receive images from the subconscious that they perceive to be real. In this waking-sleep state, similar to sleep paralysis, the individual often reports the sensation of dread that may be accompanied by shadows or flickering lights or other visual hallucinations. Hypnogogia could explain many instances of people reporting shadow people, but it does not explain the appearances observed by those who are wide awake or day time sightings.

Other skeptics attribute shadow people to nothing more than overactive imaginations and neurological disorders that trigger hallucinations or visual disturbances. This may be true in some cases, but does not explain images caught on film or shadow people who have been observed by more than one person

Sunday, September 9, 2007

When Harry Houdini, the world's most celebrated stage conjurer and escape artist, died in 1926, he left behind a challenge to bring his spirit and with it the secret code that his wife, Beatrice, and he had used in their mind-reading act. The challenge was ironic, for during his lifetime, Houdini had been devoted to exposing mediums,

On Febrary 8th, 1928 Fletcher, the supposed spirit control of medium Arthur Ford, announced during a seance that a woman who tells me she is the mother of Harry Weiss, Known as Houdini wanted to pass along a message, His wife knew the word, and no one else in all the world. Ask her if the word which I tried to get back all these years was not FORGIVE.

In a later seance by Ford the Fletcher entity announced, ''A man who says he is Harry Houdini, but whose real name was Ehrich Weiss, is here and wishes to send to his wife, Beatrice Houdini, the ten-word message which he agreed to do if it were possible for him to communicate. The message read as follows: ROSABELLE ANSWER TELL PRAY ANSWER LOOK TELL ANSWER- ANSWER TELL.

U.S. Astronauts reveal encounters with apparent Extraterrestrials and UFOs

Rumors have persisted for years that the astronauts -- nearly all of whom are military officers susceptible to being silenced under orders -- may have seen something more on the Moon than rocks and dust.

According to transcripts of the technical debriefing following the Apollo 11 mission, astronauts Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins told of an encounter with a large cylindrical UFO even before reaching the Moon," U.S. investigative journalist and researcher Jim Marrs documents Mr. Aldrin further officially presented his encounters with apparent Extraterrestrials on CNN's Larry King Show.

Jim Marrs further presents that Mr. Aldrin said, "The first unusual thing that we saw I guess was one day out or pretty close to the Moon. It had a sizable dimension to it". Aldrin said the Apollo crew at first thought the object was the Saturn 4 booster rocket (S-IVB); but, he added, "We called the ground and were told the S-IVB was 6,000 miles away."

Even more strange was the experience of Mr. Aldrin and Mr. Armstrong, after they reached the Moon.

According to an Associated Press story of July 20, 1969 published in the San Bernardino Sun-Telegram, the astronauts sighted eerie lights inside a crater near the point on the Moon where their lunar lander was due to touch down the next day.

On their first sweep around the Moon, Armstrong described a mysterious bright light on the inner wall of the crater Aristarchus, located north of their flight path. "It seems to have a slight amount of florescence to it. The area in the crater is quite bright," he reported.

"That area is definitely brighter than anything else I can see. There doesn't appear to be any color involved in it. It looks like an eerie sight," confirmed Aldrin.

Two astronauts who appear to have broken ranks are Dr. Edgar Mitchell and Gordon Cooper. On The Oprah Winfrey Show on 19 July 1991, Mitchell hinted that all information regarding UFOs has not been released, saying, "I do believe that there is a lot more known about extraterrestrial investigation than is available to the public right now [and] has been for a long time... It's a long, long story. It goes back to World War II when all of that happened, and is highly classified stuff."

Cooper, in a letter read during a 1978 meeting at the United Nations to discuss UFOs, stated, "...I believe that these extraterrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet form other planets, which are obviously a little more advanced than we are here on Earth."

Also that year, Mr. Cooper wrote a letter to the ambassador of the Mission of Grenada to the United Nations supporting a UN initiative to study UFOs. In his letter, Cooper stated that astronauts "are very reluctant even to discuss UFOs due to the great numbers of people who have indiscriminately sold fake stories and forged documents, abusing their names and reputations without hesitation. Those few astronauts who have continued to participate in the UFO field have had to do so very cautiously. There are several of us who do believe in UFOs and who have had occasion to see a UFO on the ground, or from an airplane."

Cooper's mention of a "UFO on the ground. apparently was a reference to his own experience at Edwards Air Force Base on May 2, 1957. In 1993, Cooper gave this account of the incident: "I had a crew that was filming an installation of a precision landing system we were installing out on the dry lake bed, and they were there with stills and movies, and filmed the whole installation and they came running in to tell me that this UFO, a little saucer, had come down right over them, put down three gear, and landed about 50 yards from them, and as they proceeded to go on over to get a closer shot of it, it lifted up, put the gear in, and disappeared in a rapid rate of speed.

"And so I had to follow my directions as a military... I had to look up the regulations on who I was to call to report this, which I did, and they ordered me to immediately have the film developed, put it in a pouch, and send them by the commanding general's plane to Washington, which I did. And that was the last I've ever heard of the film."

It is interesting to note indicates Mr. Marrs that, "despite the continued protests that there is no government secrecy regarding UFOs, there is no public report on this incident. Although the event was listed in the Project Blue Book index, a full report and clear photos are suspiciously absent."

Yet Mr. Cooper, who reported the UFO landing, was selected as a Mercury astronaut only two years later. In a 1996 interview, Mr. Cooper said he discounts any conventional explanation for his experience. Asked his thoughts on UFOs, the astronaut said, "Well, I figured it was somebody coming from some distant place to visit us."

Steve Omar, another investigative journalist and researcher, indicates that J. Allen Hynek (who investigated U.F.O.s for the U.S. Air Force), Major Donald Keyhoe, Timothy Good (in his book Above Top Secret) suggest secrecy about UFOs and Extraterrestrials. One unquestionably absolute expert we may want to consult is Christopher Kraft, who was Director of the NASA tracking base in Houston during the Apollo Moon missions, when he revealed the following conversation “after” he left his work at NASA:

- ASTRONAUTS NElL ARMSTRONG and BUZZ ALDRIN speaking from the Moon: “Those are giant things. No, no, no .... this is not an optical illusion. No one is going to believe this!”

- MISSION CONTROL (HOUSTON CENTER): “What...what...what? What the hell is happening? What’s wrong with you?”

- ASTRONAUTS: “We saw some visitors. They were there for awhile, observing the instruments.”

- MISSION CONTROL: ”Repeat your last information.”

- ASTRONAUTS: “I say that there were other spaceships. They’re lined up on the other side of the crater.”

- MISSION CONTROL: “Repeat...repeat!”

- ASTRONAUTS: “Let us sound this orbita ..... In 625 to 5... automatic relay connected... My hands are shaking so badly I can’t do anything. Film it? God, if these damned cameras have picked up anything... what then?”

- MISSION CONTROL: “Have you picked up anything?”

- ASTRONAUTS: “I didn’t have any film at hand. Three shots of the saucers or whatever they were that were ruining the film.”

- MISSION CONTROL: “Control, control here. Are you on your way? Is the uproar with the U.F.O.s. over?

- ASTRONAUTS: “They’ve landed there. There they are and they are watching us.”

- MISSION CONTROL: “The mirrors, the mirrors...have you set them up?”

> - ASTRONAUTS: “Yes, they’re in the right place. But whoever made those space ships surely can come tomorrow and remove them. Over and out.”

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Modern day research began with the discovery of rapid eye movement during sleep. A creative dream experiences by the 18th century Italian composer Giuseppe Tartini refutes the notion that the opium and not coleridge deserves the credit for ''Kubia Khan.'' Professor Carl Jung believed dreams and fantasies revealed inherently recognizable symbols. Dreams of disaster seem to overshadow all other precognitive dreams. Shakespeare wrote of the dreams that haunted Richard the third on the night before he died in battle and of Calournia's dream of the death of her husband Julius Caesar.

Hitler while on the front in World War 1, is said to have dreamed that his position would be buried and to have moved away in time to escape. The death of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, has been foreshadowed in a dream by a tutor. Abraham Lincoln dreamed of seeing his coffin just days before he died.

Registry for Prophetic Dreams

To cope with the greatest frustration of any investigator of prophetic dreams- that the prove only to be retrospect. Robert Nelson established his Central Premonition Registry in the year of 1968. To date, the registry has received descriptions of about 8,000 dreams, and of thse, Nelson has found 48 that bear a recognizable and detailed similarity to events that occurred after a particular dream had been registered with him. One xample of a hit was recored by a Ohio woman who dreamed of the crash of a light plane at an airport near her home.

In her dream the plane appeared to be damaged, possibly from hitting another plane or a pole. About nine days after this dream had been recorded, newspapers carried the story of the death of a local attorney in a very similar crash. A propeller was bent when the plane ''began to dip to the left'', the ''hit the top of a floodwall alongside the airport.'' The dreamer had envisoned ''three like soldiers crawling on the ground.'' In fact, three of the four people in the plane survived.

Dr. Montahue Ullman did experiments in 1965 with an affort to transmit specific images telepathically into the minds of sleeping subjects. The subjects REM sleep and electrical brain activity were monitored, and before the REM phase passes, the subject was awakened and asked to record a description of his dream. Th overall ration of his misses was not overwhelmingly impressive. Yet what was impressive was the uncanny accuracy of some of the hits that Ullman reported. In a faw of the cases he presented, dreamers described highly complex target images in such near-perfect detail that the results seemed to defy any explanation but telepathy.

The first photographic evidence that the yeti, or abominable snowman, might be more than a flight of Himalayan fancy has surfaced in public and is to be offered at auction later this month.

Four photographs of large paw prints in the snow beneath Mount Everest are to be sold at Christie's in London on September 26.

The images were taken by the legendary British mountaineer Eric Shipton on a reconaissance trip to Everest in 1951, in preparation for the first successful ascent of the 29,028 ft peak two years later.

Tom Bourdillon, who was also in the reconaissance party, later gave Shipton's black and white prints, which measure 6ins by 4ins, to a friend, Michael Davies.advertisement

Mr Davies' descendants are now selling the historic souvenirs, which are expected to fetch £2,500.

The first European claim of a sighting of a large bear-like beast in the Himalayas was made in 1925, but there was no photographic back-up until Shipton's pictures.

On the back of one of his images, Bourdillon wrote to Davies about the team's sighting of the prints.

He said: "We came across them on a high path on the Nepal-Tibet watershed during the 1951 Everest expedition.

"They seem to have come over a secondary path at about 19,500ft down to 19,000ft where we first saw them and then went on down the glazier.

"We followed them for the better part of a mile. What it is I don’t know, but I am quite clear that it is no animal known to live in the Himalaya and that it is big."

Edmund Hillary, who first climbed the mountain with Tenzing Norgay, later said in a book that a member of his successful party had found a tuft of long black hairs on a rock. The hairs were said to look like bristles.

Publication of Shipton's pictures prompted several expeditions to search for the yeti but they all proved to be inconclusive.

The photographs are included in a two-day Christie's sale devoted to exploration and travel.

Other star items include the first aerial photographs of the summit of Everest taken by Colonel Stewart Blacker in 1933 (estimate £6000) and a poignant souvenir of Captain Robert Scott's ill-fated race to the South Pole in 1912, the white canvas cover of Captain Lawrence Oates’s sleeping bag.

It was retrieved from Antarctica by a search party after Oates left Scott and the rest of the doomed team, leaving his tent in a blizzard with the now-famous last words: "I am just going outside and may be some time."

Monday, September 3, 2007

By far the most impressive physical mediums was Daniel Dunglas Home. Born in Scotland in 1833m, Home grew up in the United States but acheived his greatest fame as a medium and psychic extraordinare in England and continental Europe. In his entire career it is said, Home was never caught using stage conjuring maneuvers or trickery.

A typical Home seance was nothing short of spectacular. It might include the apperance of disembodied hands, the sight and sound of a accordion being played although no fingers were visible on its keys, and the elongation of the medium's body- all in well-lighted rooms. Home's most incredible case that was demonstrated took place in 1868. It was described in detail by Lord Lindsay, later on the Earl of Crawford, to the committee of the Dialectical Scoiety in London: ''I was sitting with Mr. Home and Lord Adare and a cousin of his. During the sitting Mr. Home went into a trance and in that state was carried out of the window in the room next to where we were and was brought in at our window. The distance between the windows was about seven feet six inches, and there was not the slightest foothold between them, nor was there more than a twelve-inch projection to each window. We heard the window in the next room lifted up, and almost immediately after we saw Home floating in the air outside our window.

Sir William Crookes an Eminent Physicist was also impressed by Home. Lady Crookes, wife of the iminent physicist Sir William Crookes, described another of Home's feats, the apperance of a mysterious accorion-playing phantom: ''Ad the figure approached I flet an intense cold, and as it was giving me the accordion I could not help screaming.'' As she screamed, ''the figure seemed to sink into the floor leaving only the head and shoulders visible, still playing the accordion,''

The above are supposed cases of telepathy a word coined by researcher Frederic Myers from the Greek ‘tele,’ or distant, and ‘pathe,’ meaning ‘feeling’. The most common form of paranormal phenomena, poll after poll has confirmed a large percentage of the population claim to have experienced it.Often called extrasensory perception, or ESP, this term was first used by explorer Sir Richard Burton in 1870. Indeed, ESP is a better term for such knowledge, which is said to come in two forms - telepathy or clairvoyance.The former is said to be mind to mind contact, whilst the latter suggests the mind can go walkies about the world, visualising things not recordable by the senses. Many researchers have noted the line between these two information talents is so thin that they could simply be subtle manifestations of a single ability to perceive information.

VARIATIONS ON A THEME

Zoologist Sir Alister Hardy had an interest in ESP after meeting a Mrs Wedgwood during World War One. She spoke of someone looking at engineering plans with red and blue squares. Hardy had been studying such plans that afternoon. On another occasion she saw a large pink square. Hardy had been painting a white card pink earlier.There are many variations on the ESP trail. On 7 December 1918 Lt David McConnel flew out from Scampton after telling his friend, Lt James Larkin that he’d be home for tea. He never returned, dying in a plane crash. But at that exact moment, Larkin saw him in his doorway. They had a short conversation before McConnel left.Cases like this are often called crisis apparitions, involving hallucination born from extrasensory knowledge or feeling. At times they have saved lives. Typical is Dr S Weir Mitchell from l9th century Philadelphia. One evening he dozed off to be awoken by a girl at the door saying her mother was ill. He followed her through a blizzard to find her mother with pneumonia. He later found out the girl had been dead some time.In December 1952 Norfolk midwife Gladys Wright couldn’t get patient Joyce Goodwin out of her mind. Eventually she drove to her house to find her in premature labour. In 1955 Wisconsin housewife Joicey Hurth suddenly felt chilled, believing her daughter had just been in an accident. She rang the cinema she was going to to discover she had just been knocked down.

UNCONSCIOUS INFORMATION

How do we account for such phenomena? In this essay I will ignore the more exotic possibilities for telepathy, and see if there is anything to be learnt from the mind’s experiences within community.One possibility is to see the personal mind as simply part of a sociological ‘whole’. Consider the phenomenon of cryptomnesia, where obscure information the person didn’t realize he had can be accessed.Such a talent offers evidence that we access everything our senses can sense. Those things that are not required pass immediately into the unconscious, only retaining in the conscious that information we require.

A SOCIAL MIND

This suggests we have a massive amount of information in the unconscious that is not ‘ours’. For instance, if we input information on every conversation we hear while walking down a busy street, we have information not concerning just ourselves.Indeed, it does not only concern those who were holding the conversation. They could be talking about a third party, who had given information about another party. The combinations of unrelated information in the mind could therefore be phenomenal.The problem with this possibility is that there appears to be no evolutionary requirement for such a talent. Yet if no filters exist to stop this information entering the mind, it must exist in the mind, as cryptomnesia suggests.

EVOLUTION AND MIND

If evolution is correct, then this information must be part of the human experience, as evolution does not allow non required talents. Hence, its existence suggests a required purpose we have not, as yet, realized.Could this purpose be a mind function that analyses mass information in a social sense as well as personal? In effect, could the mind operate at a level that is, for want of a better word, communal?If so, then we are approaching an understanding of a communal mind within the personal that accesses information at a level that can only be classed as extrasensory in terms of what we consciously realize we have.

THE CONNECTIVE PROCESS

We can see a process here analogous to the latest theories of how mind works. Theorists such as Francis Crick have argued for the existence of consciousness neurons that allow thought processes to come into being.Thought, in this view, is seen as emerging from the combined actions of millions of single cells. At some point in the process, a form of consciousness emerges from the sheer numbers of neurons involved.If we think in terms of an entire population, could a critical mass of information within the social mind spark a social consciousness in its own right, allowing ‘attention’ to retrieve information based on information concerning social interaction?

BIRTH OF THE PSYCHIC

In the above we are beginning to see the possibility of a social, communal consciousness sparking in the personal mind, based upon the sum total of information we have accessed from unconscious perception of the world.As in the idea of existing mind theory, a point comes where connections spark consciousness. If we place this possible mechanism upon society as well as mind, I suggest a similar process can occur.Such a process could well provide information by deduction that, to all intents and purposes, would appear to be telepathic. And in sparking such a communal consciousness, the person has literally become psychic.

Saturday, September 1, 2007

The Mayan Calendar ends on December 21st, 2012 but does that mean something may happen on that day in my opinion it could but then again nothing may happen. For me I don't find this doom and gloom end of the world stuff fasnicating not by a long shot.

Here's the wiki entry about it

End of the world?The end of the 13th baktun is conjectured to have been of great significance to the Maya, but does not mark the end of the world. According to the Popol Vuh, a sacred book of the Maya, we are living in the fourth world. The Popol Vuh describes the first three creations that the gods failed in making and the creation of the successful fourth world where men were placed. The Maya believed that the fourth world would end in catastrophe and the fifth and final world would be created that would signal the end of mankind.

The last creation ended on a long count of 13.0.0.0.0. Another 13.0.0.0.0 will occur on December 21, 2012, and it has been discussed in many New Age articles and books that this will be the end of this creation or something else entirely. However, the Maya abbreviated their long counts to just the last five vigesimal places. There were an infinitely larger number of units that were usually not shown. When the larger units were shown (notably on a monument from Coba), the end of the last creation is expressed as 13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.0.0.0.0, where the units are obviously supposed to be 13s in all larger places. In this age we are only approaching 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.13.0.0.0.0, and the larger places are nowhere near the 13s that would match the end of the last creation. (Schele and Friedel 1990: 430)

This is confirmed by a date from Palenque, which projects forward in time to 1.0.0.0.0.0, which will occur on 13 October, 4772. The Classic Period Maya obviously did not believe that the end of this age would occur in 2012. According to the Maya, there will be a baktun ending in 2012, a significant event being the end of a 13th 400 year period, but not the end of the world.